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Black Cloud January 14, 2011

I think Ryan deserves the Black Cloud award this week, after all he has been through.

Wedensday night, he stubbed his big toe hard against a paint can, door jamb, and the floor. His amazingly long and thick toenail did not help this situation. I was worried that the toe was broken, because it was very tender to the touch and he wouldn’t even walk on the foot that night.

The next morning, he managed to get the foot in a shoe and limp to school. He had a big project due in 3rd period, and that’s about as far as he made it. He called me to come pick him up directly after that class was over. I took him to the instacare to get it x-rayed, and everything looked fine. I think he just slammed the nail into the toe. It was bleeding out the cuticle, not a pretty sight. (Sidebar, while at the insta-care, he weighed in at a whopping 80.6 pounds. At 13 1/2, he finally weighs enough to be out of a car seat. Congratulations, Ry.)

He was recovering from that injury, and we decided he could hobble through karate if he opted out of sparring, so he got dressed and we all headed out to the car. This is where injury number two in as many days happened. Brooklyn accidentally slammed his fingers in the car door. The door was completely closed and everything, and it took a few seconds to realize what had happened and get the door open to release the fingers.

I was a little worried that the entire neighborhood would think we were abusing Ryan, from the way he stood screaming in the driveway, but I couldn’t really blame him, he must have been in a lot of pain. I rushed him in the house to get some ice and ibuprofen, and Brooklyn followed, worried and crying. It’s lucky Quinn was there to calm her down and distract her.

Ryan came away with some very sore and swollen fingers, and a couple nasty blood blisters. He obviously missed karate that night, as well as his church ball game, and I think this may keep him off the piano for a few days. (Which is it’s own kind of tragedy… I recently gave him Fur Elise to work on, which has been a nice switch from the theme song of the Mario Bros. game he had been playing day and night recently.)

Black Cloud Award

My mom gives a Black Cloud award to family members with injuries. I have a feeling he’ll be making the book this week.

Post Script: The insta-care nurse called the house today to tell us this happy news: the radiologist finally got around to reviewing Ryan’s x-rays, and the toe is broken after all. He has a small hairline fracture, which fortunately doesn’t require any special treatment.

Post Post Script: The hand injury did not keep him off the piano. He happily played the entire first page of Fur Elise, from memory… about 20 times in a row.

Robb and I were married in December 1995. Three kids and 19 years later... we have a home in the suburbs, and we love being near our family on both sides. Keep up with our successes and failures, our struggles and triumphs, and the joy of raising our children on this little blog.